County: $150,000 in checks to Project Strive never cashed

Amount for financially strapped Project Strive almost equal to lien

Updated 12:26 pm, Wednesday, March 28, 2012

ALBANY — Albany County is moving to re-cut roughly $150,000 in checks to a cash-trapped nonprofit facing a federal tax lien after a review by the Department for Children, Youth and Families found the payments were — for some reason — never cashed.

That revelation came Tuesday night in a letter from the comptroller's office to the County Legislature's Social Services Committee, which voted again to table the renewal of Project Strive's contract to provide foster-care prevention counseling on behalf of the county.

It was not immediately clear what time period those checks covered, and the memo from Executive Deputy Comptroller Edward "Chip" Dott offered no explanation for why they might have gone uncashed.

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But the sum — pegged at "approximately $150,000" — is nearly equal to $167,000 tax lien levied against the Ontario Street agency in December by the IRS for alleged nonpayment of federal withholding taxes.

That lien, combined with an investigation by the state Department of Labor, has prompted some lawmakers already critical of Project Strive, also known as the Center for the Advancement of Youth and Family, to renew their calls for the county to cut its ties with the organization.

Project Strive's executive director, however, said the memo merely confirms what he has said all along — that missed payments, including some that were lagged by the county, have contributed to his agency's financial woes.

While Project Strive's bookkeeping has been questioned since the publication of the tax lien, Executive Director David Bosworth said that whatever the reason the checks went unredeemed, it was not because the agency failed to cash them.

He suggested that, among other things, the organization's post office box may have contributed to errant deliveries.

"We are in a constant cash-crunch," said Bosworth, who is also chairman of the Guilderland Democratic Committee. "We go to the post office sometimes two-plus times a day to look for the possibility of checks arriving."

Bosworth said he believes Project Strive is owed even more than the comptroller's memo indicates.

Despite the news that the organization may soon be coming into money, lawmakers balked at approving a renewal of its contract through the end of the year.

But Colonie Republican Patrice Lockart questioned how lawmakers could proceed without an explanation for why the checks went uncashed, and Albany Democrat Noelle Kinsch said she wanted to see copies of the agency's federally required annual 990 tax forms, which appear to have last been filed with the IRS in 2009.

Kinsch also noted lawmakers have yet to receive a certification of Project Strive's fiscal stability, something lawmakers resolved last month — at least partially in response to Project Strive's troubles — to seek with all county contractors.

"We try not to get involved in the business practices of these agencies," Poulin said.

Project Strive's contract with the county — once valued at more than $1 million annually — expires at month's end, but would continue on a month-to-month basis until the legislature acts.

The contract has shrunk in recent years, and DCYF is proposing cutting it, along with more than a dozen others, as the department reins in its own budget. Under the pending new pact, Strive could not bill the county more than $561,374 over the next nine months.